Using the Following Documents, Analyze the Relationship Between Gender and Politics In

Using the following documents, analyze the relationship between gender and politics in twentieth-century Latin America.

Document 1

Woman must be dedicated to the home
Women should not become men
Men fight over political questions and form laws
Women should have children

Source: Male minister of public education

Image result for cult of domesticity

Document 2

Women need suffrage (the vote)
With the vote, she can combat social ills
Combat alcoholism and prostitution, etc.
To work for better housing and schools

Source: Mexican feminist and political speaker

Image result for votes for women

Document 3

Women with guns
Mexican female soldiers during the revolution

Source: Photograph of soldaderas

Image result for mexican revolution mexican female soldiers

Document 4

Women should have rights
It is a worldwide movement
It is just
Women do not want to control men
But by not giving the vote, women may turn to socialism – “everyone’s greatest fear”

Source: Cuban senator – bill to give married women economic rights

Image result for economic rights for women

Document 5

Don’t wait for powerful to help you
Join the struggle – defend your rights
In support of a rent-strike movement in Mexico
Don’t be a traitor or corward
Leader may be jailed but you must still fight

Source: Female anarchist and union organizer

Image result for rent strike

Document 6

Disaster to give women powers to govern
Women can be more criminal than men
Woman is for the man’s home
Woman’s vote is madness

Source: Veteran of the Mexican Revolution, private letter to president

Image result for oppose woman suffrage

Document 7

Sandinistas will abolish discrimination that woman have suffered
Economic, political and cultural equality

Source: Sandinista National Liberation Front of Nicaragua, party platform

Document 8

Argentinian women protesting government
Seeking information about Los Desaparecidos
Those missing due to political views

Source: Photograph of Mothers of the May Plaza (Madres de Plaza de Mayo)

Document 9

When revolution began, women fought with men
These female revolutionaries should all women that women can be equal to men in life and in work and in the world

Source: Female Community Activist in Nicaragua

Document 10

Women talk of equality but not equal
Women wash the dishes and take care of the children
Women are sometimes abused by husbands
Women talk of solidarity but they are not equal

Source: Chilean woman at First National Meeting of the Female Temporary Agricultural Workers, Santiago, Chile

Groups:

Women need the right of suffrage and other rights to protect themselves and deserve equality / Women belong in the home and not in the government – women are not equal / The more women do, the more they can do – women can do what men do – women can fight
Document 2
Document 4
Document 7 / Document 1
Document 6
Document 10 / Document 3
Document 5
Document 8
Document 9

Thesis within Introductory Paragraph:

The relationship between gender and politics in twentieth-century Latin America was complex and varied in that movements occurred demanding women’s equality and the right to vote (Documents 2, 4, and 7), women actively engaged in political revolutions and political movements thereby revealing their intention to act as equals to men (Documents 3, 5,8, 9) yet women faced gender discrimination as a result of individuals who felt that women belonged in the home and not in the government (Documents 1, 6 and 10). Struggles for female equality in Latin America were part of a larger worldwide movement for women’s rights that began as early as the 1700s (the Age of Enlightenment) when some women began to question notions of equality that pertained only to men. After World War I, the movement for women’s equality greatly increased. Women everywhere began to ask the question, “Why not women?” It is a question that still poses varied answers to this very day.